THEY have just finished recording their new album and now Keane are to embark on their first tour in three years.

The dates kick off with a show at Newcastle’s O2 Academy on May 23, with tickets on sale from this Friday.

On finishing the recording of the new album in February Keane announced two special shows at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, a location close to their hearts as it was both their teenage haunt and near to where the album was recorded.

They announced the dates in the local paper only and within five minutes they were sold out.

This will be the first time fans will hear new material.

Highly anticipated and years in the making, the band recorded the album in the UK at Sea Fog, Ivor Novello-award- winner Tim Rice-Oxley's studio and are calling it their most personal record yet.

Release details are to be announced soon.

Four years have elapsed since Keane’s last album Perfect Symmetry; two since Night Train, the mini LP which followed its three full-length predecessors to the top of the British album charts.

If Keane’s feverishly loyal fanbase wondered what the group’s next album would sound like, they weren’t the only ones.

In the eight years following the release of 2004’s nine-times-platinum Brit award winning Hopes & Fears, every Keane album has marked a clear progression from the previous one.

There’s the anxious emotional terrain mapped out by Under The Iron Sea and the iridescent poptimism of Perfect Symmetry featuring the electro-charged hit song Spiralling.

Now a four-piece, new member Jesse Quin, who collaborated with Rice-Oxley on Mt Desolation, plays bass and has been playing live with the band since the release of Perfect Symmetry.

Keane are at the O2 Academy, Newcastle May 23. Tickets on sale Friday.